Mirror, Mirror
by pekeleke
Summary: "It is only with the heart that one can see rightly. What is essential is invisible to the eye."


**Title: ****_Mirror, Mirror._**

**Author: **pekeleke

**Rating: ?**

**Pairing: **Severus/Harry

**Genre: **Slash.

**Word** **Count: **2280 for now. This is a **WIP.**

**Warnings: **None. Unbetaed.

**Disclaimer: **Don't own these characters. No money is being made out of this work.

**Summary:** "It is only with the heart that one can see rightly. What is essential is invisible to the eye."

**A/N1: **The summary of this story is a quote from 'The Little Prince', by Antoine de Saint Exupéry.

**A/N2:** Of all the HP cliches out there I had to go and pick this one. Veelas... OMG! I must be crazy.

**_Mirror, Mirror. Chapter 1.  
><em>**

* * *

><p><em><strong>Mirror, mirror, can't you see?<strong>_

_**What you show is killing me...**_

_ Anonymous._

* * *

><p>"It says here that I'll need the forlorn tear of a Dark Veela to complete this potion."<p>

"Good luck with that then, mate. No one has seen one of those ugly buggers alive in almost three generations." Ron's disgruntled harrumph made Harry look up from the dusty old tome he'd been so busy perusing, a confused frown wrinkling his forehead.

"But I've seen Veelas everywhere. Why, Fleur herself had dinner at your mother's just last month."

His friend gaped at him like a fish who'd just seen a camel for the first time in its life.  
>"Veelas are common, Harry. But you don't want a regular Veela. You want a dark one, isn't that what you said?"<p>

Harry's head motioned in agreement even as he frowned, genuinely puzzled by the importance Ron was placing on such seemingly small detail.  
>"So? Aren't they all the same species? Light Veela, Dark Veela... same scary, crazy bird when it gets riled. How different can they be from one another apart from the color of their feathers?"<p>

"Oh, Harry!... " Hermione snorted from the other side of the table with the same annoying tone she always used to imply he was as totally wrong about something as any man could possibly be and he hated it with all his heart, as usual.

"Dark Veelas are to Light Veelas what day is to night. They are their total opposite in each and every way. Normal Veelas are beautiful in their human form to the point of being able to enthrall those around them with nothing but the power of their loveliness. They are only ugly on the inside. That is why they turn into those horrible birds whenever they are afraid or furious."

"I know that much, 'Mione. I saw the entire male population of Hogwarts go literally gaga when the girls from Beauxbatons came over and I've also seen the effect Fleur has on perfectly logical guys every single time she steps out on her own."

"Dark Veelas are hideous in their human form, Harry. They look so awful that children run away from them on sight. Men shudder in distaste whenever they are in their presence and women faint at the very idea of having to touch them."

"Oh!"

"That is not the worst of all, you see? Most sources agree on the point that a Dark Veela's soul is the most beautiful thing under the stars. That's quite the ironic paradox, is it not? To give physical beauty to the ugliest hearts of a race while condemning the truly exceptional to monster-like unloveliness seems unbearably cruel to me."

Harry was both dismayed and utterly floored.  
>"Why have I never heard of this? Shouldn't we have at least studied something about these creatures at school?"<p>

Ron shrugged carelessly.  
>"Why should we have? The dammed things are extinct. Weren't you listening to what 'Mione just said, mate? They were all too ugly to get laid so they went out ages ago. Their nature was very reclusive and they posed no direct threat to us, wizards. There's no point in bothering to study their little quirks any more because we have nothing useful to learn from them, I guess, and I think that's just as well. Care of Magical Creatures was bad enough as it was, forcing us to study all that nonsense about the Ogres and the Vampires and the bloody Grindylows when chances are most people will never get to see a single one of them, anyway."<p>

"But I need that tear. I can't finish this blasted potion without it and if I don't finish the potion then I'll fail his stupid test. That means I won't be able to go back to Hogwarts as that dammed bastard's apprentice, so I won't be able to have his undivided attention for a year."

Ron shrugged again, focusing on the last cookie in the packet that rested on the table with distracted, if voracious, greed.  
>"Maybe that's for the best, mate. This obsession you've got going over the Greasy Git, of all people, is starting to get out of hand. If Snape doesn't want to see you then I say you should leave the poor bastard alone. It's no skin off your nose, either way, is it?"<p>

"But _I_ want to see _him_, Ron. I want to have a single conversation with the guy and it isn't even as if I've got nothing to tell him. He saved my life. He saved all of our lives. He knew my mother better than anybody else and he never bothered to tell me! My god, I've got his fucking memories stuffed in a bottle and he's not letting me get near enough to him to give them back safely. He is being a bloody asshole about all of this, that's what! If he thought he'd get rid of me with that stupid challenge he gave me then he's going to learn the hard way never to underestimate me again."

"Harry..."

"_'Become a Potions master, if you can, Potter. Then, and only then,_ _will you_ _have something of interest to say to me.' _That was the most patronizing dismissal I've ever heard and I'm not letting him treat me like that anymore. I stopped being a scared little fifth year ages ago and I'll be damned before letting him push me into running away like a guilty kid."

Hermione stirred in her chair.  
>"I'm sure he never expected you to take up his challenge and stick to it so doggedly. He definitely never encouraged you to apply for his mentorship in your thesis project. Everybody knows he's never, ever, taken on an apprentice, Harry."<p>

He grunted with annoyance, right fist coming down to hammer against the book he'd been reading in a gesture that brimmed with sheer frustration.  
>"That's because no one has ever been able to concoct the idiotic potion he invariably sets as the practical part of the application. Half the guys at Uni would kill their grandmothers to have the chance to apprentice with that bastard. He is the best, Hermione. The. Bloody. Best! We were too busy complaining about his awful attitude to realize that we were being taught by a living legend in the field, for Merlin's sake! I can't believe I had the chance to learn from him and I just squandered it like so much rubbish."<p>

Ron finally pounced on the cookie and munched on it furiously.  
>"You shouldn't beat yourself up about that so much, mate. All of us had the same chance and all of us squandered it. We hated his classes and he hated us right back. I don't think anyone learned anything from him at all because the guy may be a living legend when it comes to potions but he's a terrible teacher. You'll never learn anything from him, even if you manage to concoct this stupid potion, so I think you need to cut your loses while you still can and apply to someone else."<p>

Harry sighed, disheartened beyond measure by the unfairly bad reputation that Severus Snape had so systematically, so stubbornly, created for himself on purpose.  
>"But we did, Ron, we did. When I started my first year of potions mastery everyone knew, just knew, that I had come from Hogwarts. That certainty had nothing to do with the scar on my forehead or the fact that anyone who hasn't lived under a rock for the past decade knows my entire life history. No. What tipped them off was the way I chopped my ingredients and how easily I could recite the wrong kind of interactions between one thing and another off the top of my head. I was at least two years ahead most of my peers and I used to suck at potions. Bloody Hell... You should had seen the director's face when Malfoy opened his mouth to answer a question for the first time. He got transferred to the last year of training at that very second and it would have been the same for me if I'd paid enough attention to Snape's lectures while I was at Hogwarts."<p>

Hermione sighed.  
>"You've got to give that plan of yours up for lost, then. If Professor Snape was ever going to pick one of his ex-students for the prized chance of becoming his first, ever, apprentice he'd have picked Malfoy already. We all know he used to dote on him."<p>

Harry's face flushed with frustrated anger at the injustice of it all.  
>"He can't, even if he wants to. Malfoy may love his potions but his father won't let that little ponce dedicate himself to his craft full time. He could have been brilliant at it, there is absolutely no doubt about that, but he's meant to keep the family billions rolling in, so that's my chance to get in right there, Hermione. I may not be the best apprentice Snape could have, but I'm the one who wants this mentorship the most. I've worked dammed hard to get the kind of grades necessary for him to even <em>look<em> at my application. I deserve this, and it isn't fair that he's rigging the selection process in a way that practically guarantees no one can pass his test."

Ron shook his head with the kind of solemn resignation of an accomplished undertaker and pointed out quietly:  
>"You'll have to give up whether you want to or not. You've just said it yourself, Harry: Snape chose this potion on purpose because it needs Dark Veela ingredients. Those beasts are extinct, so you've got no way of getting that tear. Your Precious living legend doesn't want to bother with an apprentice and this is his way of getting around the guidelines of The Potioneers Guild. He's supposed to be available to mentor qualifying apprentices and he is, at least on paper. It may not be very ethical, but ultimately it isn't his fault that no one can pass his requirements. Is it? It's all very Slytherin of him, but then he's been the head of the blasted snake house for ages, so I'm not particularly surprised to find out that he is not only a terrible teacher but also a crafty old bugger to boot."<p>

Harry started frowning midway through his friend's rant and his vibrant green eyes lowered down towards his book, studying the ingredients list with focused attention.  
>"Even if he's trying to do it on purpose The Guild would have refused to accept this potion if it was truly impossible to make. He must have been able to brew it himself before a professional panel. He's required to do that at least once every five years in order to keep his practical test of choice active. His mentorship outline would have been considered illegal otherwise and he needs that to keep his Guild membership. He'd have been forced to select a different potion if he'd failed to brew it himself. Those are the rules, Ron, and the old wigs at the pottioneer's council would have jumped at the chance to force him to change his requirements. Everyone wants him to take on at least one apprentice. All his knowledge is going to waste on oblivious Hogwarts' students as it is."<p>

Hermione looked pensive. Thick eyebrows lifting, almost to her hairline in concentration.  
>"Then there must be some kind of storage facility that specializes in keeping this kind of rare and exorbitantly expensive ingredients. Malfoy may know where it is. Why don't you ask him?"<p>

"It has to be a tear. A fresh, forlorn, tear. There's no way to store that sort of thing."

Ron huffed, annoyed.  
>"Then it's obvious that the Bat is aware of the exact location of the last living, breathing, ugliest bugger on Earth and knowing that much is still pointless to you, anyway. Dark Veelas are supposed to be registered with the Ministry and there's no record of one in the last three centuries at least. That means Snape's source is hiding and the bloke who managed to keep his precious secrets safe from Voldemort himself won't give them to you, either. You know that as well as I do, mate."<p>

Harry looked at him with grim determination.  
>"So there's a Dark Veela out there, somewhere, and Snape knows where it is. He's not gonna help me out with this, that is for sure. All that means is that I'll have to find this creature by myself and I've done more difficult things already. I've still got three months to work on this potion before the deadline closes and I want to prove the git wrong with every fiber of my heart. Help me out here, Ron. How do I recognize one of these things?"<p>

Bright blue eyes rolled in their sockets, clearly showcasing Ron's frustrated exasperation:  
>"What do you want me to tell you? Think of the ugliest, meanest, scariest looking bastard you have ever seen and then wonder: does this person have the kind of soul unicorns would kill for? If the answer is yes, then by all means go: make the poor thing cry as much as you like, Harry!"<p>

Sudden silence followed that explosively delivered reply. Hermione elbowed her boyfriend with murderous displeasure while Harry's eyes became as round as saucers, glazed with the kind of awed insight that neither of his friends could actually understand.  
>"Oh. My. Gosh!..." He whispered roughly, turning a truly shocked gaze towards them in the next second. "I know someone just like that, guys. I know exactly where this Dark Veela is, and I can't believe no one's realized it so far..."<p>

**TBC**


End file.
